Each new week represents a fresh opportunity for a real estate agent to be prospecting for new clients more effectively, and it is something all of them should be aiming to do if growing your PREC is a priority. Working as a realtor is a very different means of earning a living for yourself, and you are very much on your own and entirely in control of your own destiny with whether or not you’re going to be a success in this or not.
It’s a competitive business at all times, and your ability to generate real estate leads effectively is always going to be a decisive factor in that success. Real estate lead generation is something that comes more naturally to some in comparison to others, but if you’re one of the others then you may well want to consider paid real estate leads from one of the best real estate lead generation services in Canada. We are one of them, and realtors who continue to use our service are benefitting from receiving genuine leads each month.
But be aware that your focus with new real estate leads shouldn’t be exclusively in the digital space. Real estate agents need to be hustling at all times, and your leads need to be coming from traditional means like advertising and effective networking for realtors too. But when it comes to quick real estate leads you will probably find that online leads are the ones that are converted into clients most reliably and quickly.
That’s provided you know what you’re doing and can convince these people that you are their best choice as a realtor. That is a skill in and of itself, and if you can have a solid local reputation as an agent that is going to go a long way too. Real estate marketing tips are always the topic of focus here, and what we’re going to do this week’s blog entry is share 5 approaches you can use for real estate leads this week. So let’s get right to them.
Greater and Faster Conversions
Longer focus approaches for real estate lead strategies are always going to best, and that should continue to be where you put most of your focus. But for agents who are looking to make up for lull periods in business there may be more of a wish to drum up clients who are ready to sell a home or buy one right now, or on a similarly shorter timeframe.
We will continue to encourage you to optimize your website and blog on real estate markets for organic online traffic, but if your focus is more on the right-now then you need strategies that will land you legitimate real estate leads ASAP. What will follow here are 5 proven ways to generate real estate leads this week, and you can put them into practice coming Monday or any other time.
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Put Together a Killer Offer and Market It Aggressively
The challenge here is to come up with something in your market that buyers or sellers will usually pay out-of-pocket for it, like a minor and not too pricey upgrade to a property or perhaps adding access to an amenity. As the realtor you then offer to pay those expenses out of your commission, and what this then does with real estate lead generation is convince these buyers or sellers to choose you as their realtor and rather than another agent who may also have already been in contact with them.
This will be an additional expense for you, but if it establishes an immediate listing or qualified buyer then it will be worth it. You can think of it as paying a 25% referral fee to secure a new client, and that is something that most realtors will be happy to do. Some realtors take this approach as their full-time competitive advantage as a means of creating immediate real estate leads, because these types of incentives will be very appealing to prospective clients because they are really ‘getting something’ out of it.
Great Offers for Sellers
It can be common for sellers to pay for their own listing photos. If that stands to be the case for any of them that are ready to list with a real estate agent then your offer to pay for professional listing photos for their listing can be a great idea to generate real estate leads and convince them to list with you. Not only will your listings sell faster and for more money, but you’ll also gain a serious competitive advantage in the listing presentation.
You may also want to consider drone photos for real estate here. Other ideas can be virtual tours, home staging, or realtors covering moving costs for clients.
Great Offers for Buyers
The same can for homebuyer clients for realtors. Listing photos and tours won’t apply here, but what you can do is consider any of these options as incentive to buy a home through you:
- Housewarming parties
- Covering home inspections
- New home photo shoots
- Grocery bundles
- Complimentary annual property tax reviewers
You should market your killer offer as best as you can if you want to maximize new real estate leads from it. Get the word out with full effectiveness through social media posts, paid social media ads, banners on your real estate agent website, door hangers or fliers on cars, and you may even want to consider TV or radio spots if you have a larger real estate promotion budget.
Make sure your promotions include a referral reminder too, along with a definitive CTA (call to action) that encourages interested individuals to contact you as soon as possible by a direct means (provide phone, email, and other means of contacting your for immediate receiving and replying).
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Get Immediate Real Estate Leads from Zillow
Zillow has been operating in Canada too for a few years now, and it possible to get real estate leads through Zillow. Any discussion of real estate marketing tips is going to involve talk about platform like this one and Realtor.com, but for many agents these more expensive leads aren’t a realistic avenue for them. But here are three ways to generate real estate leads from them without necessarily buying them.
Find FSBOs
If you are a real estate agent in Canada you will already be familiar with this acronym, but if not it stands for For-Sale-By-Owner and with online real estate platforms you can filter listings to only show FSBOs. These individuals are obviously going to be keen to sell, and they may be realizing that selling a house on your own isn’t working out so well for them. Contact each of these owners and make them aware of your expertise in local real estate and what you can do to make it much more likely they sell their home and get what they’re asking for it.
Find Investors
These platforms also allow rental property investors to market their units for rent. This can be a way to find quick real estate leads too. Sorting by rentals will put property owners who might be looking to offload an underperforming rental or expand their portfolio right in front of you, and ideally with a means of contacting them and inquiring if they’d be interested in listing the property for sale.
It helps if you can do a bit of research on the rentals you find on Zillow and contact the owner with helpful info.
Upgrade Estimates
It’s a known fact that home value estimates on these online platforms can be wildly inaccurate. Use this to show your value to local homeowners. Run a quick CMA for off-market homes in your niche before contacting the homeowners to let them know that your calculations show that the estimate they received isn’t in line with what you see it to be. You then proceed to ask if they’d like to discuss the real value of their home.
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Mine Social Media Platforms
Social media is increasingly where people are active in their search for both homes and realtors who can assist with the sale or purchase of them. Realtors who meet people where they are on social media are going to do well with real estate lead generation because they will be building brand recognition, establishing authority, and growing their audience.
And for faster lead generation for relators social media is also great because it allows you to instantly communicate with large groups of people in a way that is more immediately engaging and promotes them responding to your interest faster because it’s so easy.
Here is what you should be doing for social media real estate leads this week.
Target unique audiences by creating social media posts and ads by making them engaging and valuable, and with the focus on value you can go back to #1 here and put your offer very clearly in the post or the ad. You may also want to cater to #2 and run and ad that states you believe that the home value estimates from online real estate platforms are chronically inaccurate, and any homeowner can contact you for a free market evaluation for their home.
You may also want to try targeting renters as a means of real estate lead generation through social media. An approach might be to inform them that they don’t need a full 20% down and that there are programs available designed to provide first-time homebuyer assistance. Another idea will be to offer a free real estate seminar or webinar (like The First Time Buyers Seminar: Everything You Need to Know About Buying Your First Home) or to publish a poll where respondents have the option to indicate if they’re planning to buy a new home this year.
A social media calendar for real estate is something you can look into too, and if putting one together is beyond the scope of your abilities then you may want to hire a social media expert to help you with that.
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Ask a Directs Question of Buyer Prospects
Not making the most of their real estate buyer leads is way too common with agents it seems. You may have buyers who are saying they’re planning to start looking in 3-6 months, but as real estate agent who needs quick real estate leads that doesn’t mean you should be waiting through that period of time to open communications with them. There are very likely buyer leads sitting in your CRM where you should be taking action now rather than waiting until the time you currently think is appropriate.
What you should do instead is be more direct (while courteous at the same time of course) asking these real estate buyer leads whether or not they need to sell their home before they buy a new one.
It’s a good question to ask because for a lot of would-be buyers this is often the primary stumbling block. New real estate leads can hang on this, because plenty of them will need to sell their homes before buying the next one. So the need becomes making sure they understand the timing of their listing. What you can do is advise them that they may need to list sooner than they thought based on current market forecasts, and especially if they’re hoping to adhere to a time frame for buying the new place.
Share your market knowledge with these clients and help them understand the selling process even if they aren’t quite ready to list. If they’re ready now, great and this is an instance of success with quick real estate leads. But if they need more time, that’s fine you’ve still done well and it’s more likely you’ll be at the front of their mind when they decide it’s time to choose a real estate agent to work with.
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Contact Everyone in Your Sphere
We’re well into sharing what we know about drumming up new real estate leads this week, and the final recommended approach we’re going to share with you here is contacting everyone in your sphere to make them aware that you are available and ready to work with new real estate clients who are ready to buy or sell a home locally. Not everyone in your sphere will be looking to buy or sell in immediate future, but more than a few of them will know someone who is and if you’re held in high regard by them then they will be inclined to recommend you as a realtor.
So when you reach out you can ask if they are looking to make a move, along with asking if they know of anyone else who might be too. Reach out for immediate real estate leads by the means that you think are going to be most effective for contacting these people and having your communication be favorably received. That could be by phone call, text, email, or a direct message through one of the many apps people use these days.
Your message to your sphere can be about your special offer(s) as we discussed earlier, or it may be more simply that you aim to check in with people to see how they’re doing. When they ask about you, tell them about the strength of the market and how you’re taking new clients if they know someone looking to make a move. All of these approaches are super effective to generate real estate leads, and can be used to augment what you are getting out of paid real estate leads with the best real estate lead company in Canada right here.
FAQs
- What are some effective ways to generate real estate leads quickly?
You can generate quick real estate leads by using social media posts to make prospective clients aware of special offers that you are making available to them that they won’t receive if they list or buy through another agent. Another effective way is to use online real estate platforms to be tipped off to for-sale-by-owner or expired listings where contact information for the homeowner is shown.
- How can social media help in generating real estate leads?
Today the majority of homebuyers in the younger demographic cohort will be very active on social media when it comes to looking at homes for sale, gauging the median market values for homes in areas, as well as being receptive to working with a realtor who they are introduced to through a social media platform. Realtors can do well with lead generation if they create smart and creative paid social media ads and also being very active in any local real estate Facebook groups.
- Can generating leads quickly compromise the quality of leads?
This may be true in certain instances, as it is always possible that prospective clients who present as warm or hot leads will turn out to be cooler leads simply because of the speed with which the communications between realtor and would-be client have occurred. The best advice here is to develop a real estate script that poses questions where responses can be more accurately discerned to indicate how legitimately the client is going to sell or buy a home in the near future.
- What is the benefit of hosting virtual open houses with an eye to generating immediate real estate leads?
A virtual open house puts the property for sale in the view of interested parties that go beyond local residents or interested buyers who are in person in the area as they look to buy a home there. These days it is much more common for prospective buyers to be elsewhere in the country, or even outside of the country.
A virtual open house will increase the reach of your efforts and it is likely that from time to time you may come up with new clients because someone has viewed your virtual open house and likes what they see – either with the property itself or with you have on display for your expertise as a real estate agent. They may well be thinking you are the type of industry professional they want to work with as they consider purchasing a home in your area.
